An ex-con who was booted from a low-rent Staten Island motel for smoking pot took his revenge by repeatedly calling 911 and reporting the place had caught fire, authorities allege.

Donnell Stapleton

In all, 33-year-old Donnell Stapleton, called 911 on 51 separate occasions between February and July, summoning firefighters to the Hotel Richmond at 71 Central Ave. in St. George, according to court papers.

In each case, he would either report that a fire had broken out, he could hear fire alarms, or he could smell or see smoke coming from the building, FDNY officials allege.

And each time, the FDNY would dispatch uniformed firefighters to check it out, finding nary a flicker of flame.

Fire Marshal Daniel Caruso, of the Marshals' Special Investigations Unit, arrested Stapleton over the weekend, charging him with 51 felony counts of falsely reporting an incident and 51 misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment, as well as a single misdemeanor count of reckless endangerment.

"People who think they can call the fire or police department to harass others by calling false alarms will be held accountable," said Chief Fire Marshal Robert Byrnes. "This is a waste of city resources that can endanger the public."

Although court papers only document bogus 911 calls going back to February, Byrnes said Stapleton started making the calls last November after the motel threw him out for smoking marijuana.

Marshals are also investigating the possibility that an accomplice also made several 911 calls on Stapleton's behalf, Byrnes said.

The calls stopped on July 31, Byrnes said -- the same day Stapleton was arrested on robbery charges in Brooklyn.

He was released on Sept. 3, after being sentenced to time served, a law enforcement source said.

At the time of his arrest, Stapleton was living in a vacant building on Central Avenue, authorities said.

He admitted making the bogus calls, court papers allege.

"I got mad because they lied on me, so (that's) why I called the fire department," he allegedly told investigators. "(I'm) so sorry for what I did, somebody could (have) got hurt."

Stapleton was arraigned earlier today in Stapleton Criminal Court. He was ordered held without bail until his next court appearance on Oct. 15, said William J. Smith, a spokesman for District Attorney Daniel Donovan.

According to authorities, Stapleton has been arrested 13 times, with 12 of those arrests resulting in convictions.

One of those cases, a 1995 burglary in West Brighton, ended with Stapleton being sentenced to one to three years in prison, public records show.